Just a Minute With: English director Mike Leigh

NEW YORK (Reuters) - English director Mike Leigh has been praised for his award-winning films that cast a critical and realistic eye on British society through gritty, heartbreaking characters.

His new film, "Happy-Go-Lucky," set to be released in the United States October 10, has some saying he is at last looking on the bright side of life with the film centering on Poppy, a free-spirited London teacher who is perpetually optimistic.

But Leigh, 65, who began his career as a theater director and playwright, says such judgments are simplistic and the film is not so different from his Academy-award nominated other films including "Vera Drake" and "Secrets & Lies".

Q. Why do you describe this as an "anti-miserablist" film?

A. "There is much cause to be gloomy and pessimistic in the world but there are people out there getting on with it, notwithstanding teachers like Poppy who are cherishing and nurturing the future."

Q. You cite things like destroying the planet as an example of today's gloom and cynicism. What other particular world events or issues may have inspired you in your thoughts about countering that?

A. "My job as a filmmaker and a storyteller is instinctively to tap into the zeitgeist and get on with it and tell stories of the particular and so when I talk about 'we are destroying the planet and destroying each other', you and I both know what that means and it is not a particular event, it is the general condition."

Q. How do you consider yourself in relation to such talk about optimism?
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